Tag: World

Umm Zain:“A big jazakallah to you for conducting the geography workshop today! I feel like I am walking around with a globe head today… Always thinking about the land masses and the oceans 🙂 I discovered Southern Ocean today Alhamdullilah. I also learned that the earth’s tilt stays the same. It took 200 yrs to build the great wall of china. We visited many countries on google earth too! It was so much fun!! I declare a workhop on land formations soon! There was a lot covered Alhamdullilah 🙂

Anonymous “Jazakallah for hosting a fabulous workshop today. It was really enlightening,inspirational and benefitted me a lot. Love the way you had everything organized and your style of presentation was amazing. Looking forward to attending future workshops.”

Testimonials from the KIds Geography Workshops

Naila KIbria:“Mashallah! Jazakallah Sis!My son loves attending these classes! The classes are full of energy and excitement. He looks forward to the interactive activities and all the songs and rhymes they learn. He loves coming home with the hand outs and showing his family and friends what Aunti has taught in class. May Allah swt bless your family in many folds for providing these classes ameen ”

Madiha Hashmi:“My kids attended both the World Geography and Canadian Geography classes and learned a lot MashaAllah (as did I :)). Along with teaching the kids the various concepts of geography, UmmUmamah does a great job empowering parents with the knowledge needed to reinforce the concepts learned with tons of printables, links and tips.”

Raviha Waqar“JazakAllah sister for organizing the Geography classes. My son attended both the sessions, World Geography as well as Canadian Geography, since we did not start with the topics yet these sessions proved to have given him a strong base and love for the subject to build upon further. We were surprised that he knew all continents by heart when he came back after the first session only. The way you incorporated Montessori techniques and kept themes and songs made him remember everything. The drills they did whether by the huge maps or models you had made or crafts they worked on and the abundant worksheets you supplied us with keeping same color scheme engraved the topics in his mind not only of the world but he also learned a lot in Canadian geography which for me being a new immigrant were a great help since I didn’t know much myself.And best of all the way you connected Geography with Islam and made the connections of our important landmarks and How Allah made everything,it made perfect sense to them. The sessions were very nicely assembled and age appropriate details were shared. JazakAllah for your hard work and giving Muhib such a wonderful start.”

The more I do it , the more I love Montessori method. The fixed colors of continents make things so much simpler and understandable for young minds.

I found these FREE Continent Nomenclatures cards (in Montessori colors) at the Helpful Garden. I almost jumped out of my seat, because I just happened to find these just as I was thinking of making them by myself.

I loved this idea since I saw it on several Montessori blogs. I didn’t have a big pricking tool or a fancy push pin, so I kept putting it off, until I had this Eureka moment and made my own push pins. Now why didn’t I think of this before…. DUH!!

I made our very own DIY push pins ready in less than ten minutes. I could not believe why I never thought of this before. I was not in favor of using the regular sized push pins. I could be wrong, but I thought the miniature sized ones were not only a safety hazard but would put too much strain on the hand on the lil ones.

Well here we are… our very own pushpins…. and cork board made by hot gluing two pieces of cork board to make a thicker surface for the pins to go through.

Lil Muallim # 2 sat and helped me make this as a wonderful assistant Mashallah. He even chose the colors.

He kept asking what they were for….and when I showed him , his eyes were gleaming with joy.

To my utter surprise he loved this activity so much that he ended up punching out three Africas in one sitting!!!

In continuing our world map activities I asked Lil Muallimah which continent would she like to do first, and she chose Africa.

I gave her this printable I got from curriculum click, when it came as a freebie. You will notice her own Africa is spelled as “AfNicA” (hehe) because she had mistaken the lines of r and i as one letter making it n…,

I am totally fine with that, she will get it eventually 🙂 If you look closely she even colored the lake in the middle, blue 🙂

Then I asked her if she wanted to make it with modelling clay ? And she said “YES!” So I grabbed her foam puzzle and we ran downstairs.

I asked her to point out Africa on this foam puzzle I got from the $ store. (it doesn’t have the same colors as Montessori maps, so ayounger child might get confused) Thankfully Lil Muallimah got it right but I do see the wisdom and benefit in the Montessori Maps.

Nonetheless the rest is pretty much clear through the pictures. She was quite enthusiastic throughout this activity and wanted to get it just right 🙂

The yellow tool actually came in a play dough set, my kids had got as a gift yeaaaaars ago 🙂

This download from Montessori Print Shop is a wonderful way to practice recognition and naming the continents. I printed out the black and white pages from the file and colored them in, by hand and followed the instructions to laminate and make the pinning flags.

Next day, I actually asked Lil Muallimah to help mak eher new activity.

First I asked her to place the flags on to a styrofoam sheet.

Next I asked her to make some balls with sticky tack

Then I asked her fix the balls of sticky tack onto the black dots on the continents, on the World map.

Finally she got to do her activity. Pin the correct flag on to the corresponding continent matching the color and shape.

Now the same activity with a twist. Matching the names of the continents

The control of error in Montessori Activities does give a boost to the child’s confidence. Love it 🙂

Right after Lil Muallimah finished coloring her World map, (see post here) we went upstairs to turn it into something cooler, our very own…………

CONTINENT TWISTER

We have played this way before two with the older ones, but those printed maps were played on and thrown after the wear and tear.This time I thought of sticking it onto a bristol board. Picking through our bristol boards in our stationary closet, I thought it would be much cooler if I stuck it onto blue bristol board. Now that way I wouldn`t have to colour in the continents, Phew! BUT……that meant I would have to cut around the continents. Sigh….. which I did but not around the smaller island parts.

I even made Antarctica from the left over cut out which was missing in the original map as Lil Muallimah pointed out.

Then I laminated it with shelf liner… and we were all ready to play.

Right foot Asia , left foot North America

Right foot Africa , left foot South America………

…..and Right hand Asia , left hand North America

Right foot Asia , left foot North America

By the time of the last picture she was giggling and asking me… could you please make it simpler now ! …..because she was getting all criss crossed … hehe

Lil Muallimah got to color her own world map. I got the 6 page print out from Owl and Mouse website. and Lil Muallim 1 and 2 put it together as a puzzle with Lil Muallim #1 folding the sides to match it up.

Got to love team work. It is an important lesson to teach kids……. helping out siblings. A true blessing when they do….Alhumdolillah!

She used her World Map to match the shapes of continents and colors. She was quite excited and did Australia and Africa in one sitting.

Just so she wouldn’t stress out if a bit of color came out of the lines, I oulined the continent with a think line at the borders as you can see in the picture below.

She did South America and North America next with others to follow.

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Her neatness shows how much she prizes this 🙂

Asia is waiting to be completed for the past week 🙂 I think today will be the day.

UPDATE:

Yup…we did finish it today. First when I laid it out and asked her if she wanted to do it she said no. A little while later, I sat down and asked her if she would like me to make the outlines. That’s all I needed to say. We were all done in less than 5 minutes 🙂

We also fixed some mistakes in the coloring by pasting a paper over certain parts (border of Europe and Asia) and reduced the size of Greenland. Different map projections have varying size for some areas. But that I’ll talk about in another post.